Accidents Happen
by NuitNoirechan
Summary: His lack of trust is painful to Alice, but it doesn't mean that Elliot doesn't notice her. It will simply take more effort, intentional or unintentional.


**Before anyone gets on my case, this is set in Diamond. I have recently beaten Elliot's route and can promise you that he's not near as sweet as anyone's used to. It's really a shame, but it makes his route a lot more interesting. In fact, it's not until his Best End that he's the super cutie we all know him as. He's very suspicious of Alice because Blood has said she's a spy (even though Blood knows she's not). And so Alice spends almost his entire route trying to convince him that she's trustworthy; it gets tedious, but once he starts trusting her the route really plays on your emotions.**

**This is very loosely based off of one of his events. Very loosely indeed. And I own nothing here, characters and all belong to QuinRose.**

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"Oi, are you even watching where you're going!?"

Alice flinched. No, she hadn't been, but that didn't warrant getting yelled at simply because they'd brushed arms in the hallway. Then again, she could have walked past Elliot without saying a word and he'd have still been displeased with her.

That hostile gaze that she'd never expected to have leveled at her was suddenly a daily occurance in the Country of Diamond. Thanks to Blood's ideas of entertainment, Elliot had yet to trust Alice despite everything she'd done to convince him otherwise.

It hurt. It hurt a lot.

"I'm sorry," Alice replied, keeping her voice steady. "But I'm in as much of a hurry as you are, so wouldn't it be better if both of us just kept walking instead of you so rudely yelling at me?"

If not for Blood's orders, Elliot would surely have shot her for that. Heck, he'd have shot her long before. As it was his blue glare intensified. "What was that?"

"Look, accidents happen. I don't want to delay you and I don't want to be delayed myself," said Alice impatiently. "Please excuse me." Not the best parting words, but she felt that they needed to be said as she continued walking to the kitchen.

She could feel his angered gaze boring through her skull as she walked and did her best to ignore it. This was all Blood's fault; blaming Elliot for his distrust wouldn't be right.

For a moment, Alice's fists were tight; then she relaxed, feeling a brief rush of melancholy that was in turn swept away by the bustle of the kitchen that she stepped into. There was work to be done and she couldn't waste time moping over something that wouldn't, couldn't be changed by wishing.

Within moments she was hard at work and all depressing thoughts were lost in the ensuing chaos of preparations for the next tea party that Blood wished to hold. Alice found herself whipping cream in a giant bowl into fluff.

Giant indeed, for she couldn't wrap her arms around it. Whatever this much whipped cream would be needed for she didn't know. Rather than dwell on it, Alice focused on her work.

'This goes… on that shelf over there,' she thought as she finished with the whipped cream. Even as tired as her arms were, she still had work to do, and so she stretched on tiptoe to slide the bowl onto the rather high shelf-

"Ah! That's looks delicious, Onee-san!"

At the voice behind her, Alice jumped. The bowl was jostled; it wobbled, tilted, and predictably fell, right onto her head.

… Silence. And then both twins burst into laughter.

"Ahahaha, nice, Onee-san! Now you're real sweet indeed!"

"DEE! DUM! What are you even doing in here!?" snapped Alice as she pulled the bowl from her head. "Stealing food again?"

"Nope! We're here to **borrow **something to eat," was Dum's cheerful response. "Good of us, isn't it?" They weren't sorry; of course not. Alice swore that these two were ten times worse in this country than the Tweedle Dee and Dum she knew from the Countries of Heart and Clover.

Alice twitched. "It's almost the same thing! Now out, we're all working and now I need to get cleaned up thanks to you two!"

"Eehhh? We didn't do a thing!"

This was getting nowhere. Frustrated that her work had already gone to waste, Alice pushed past the twins before they could try anything (who knew what they'd do to help her "clean up," after all) and headed straight for her room.

"Hey! You're supposed to be wor- the hell happened to you!?"

Oh lovely… Elliot had spotted her. "A bowl of whipped cream fell on me," was Alice's dull reply. The stuff was in her hair and clothes and it was sticky; she only wanted to change right now.

Elliot's expression told her he didn't know whether to disbelieve her or to laugh, although she would rather it be the second because at least it'd mean he'd _trust_ her words for once. "Seriously?"

"Truly. You can thank the slacking twins, who even now are probably still in the kitchen stealing food," Alice said in return. "If you catch them by surprise, i'm sure you can drag them back to work."

Ears on end, Elliot glared past her. "The kitchen!? So that's where those damn brats went…! I'll grab 'em by the ears this time… You get cleaned up and back to work then!"

"That is just what I plan to do." Wiping a little of the sticky cream out of her eyes, Alice continued walking.

And Elliot, distracted though he was, had to wonder where the sudden impulse to lick that whipped cream from her hand had come from.


End file.
